weekly film- We need to talk about Kevin

We need to talk about Kevin is a psychological thriller film directed by Lynne Ramsay. The film took 5 years to make, production started in 2005 and commenced in 2010. In 2005 BBC films acquired the rights to adapt the book to a film. There was a long delay in production due to BBC Films having difficulty funding the high budget; Ramsay rewrote the script so the film could be made for a lower cost. However, The UK Film Council awarded £18,510 to the production from its development fund in the same month. In addition financial backing was also provided by Footprint Investments LLP, Caemhan Partnership LLP and Lipsync Productions, and production is in association with Artina Films and Forward Films.

 In this film the mise en scene has been very closely looked at, the main charter Kevin is shot in colours throughout the film that link to key advents later on , for example within the set of Kevin’s room there is red a yellow, also the a lot of the time he is wearing red or yellow, this links to props later on such as the yellow bike lock, this micro feature is only visible later on.

We mainly see the film from the mother’s perspective; therefore you could say she is the protagonist in the film, even though the film is based around Kevin’s actions from a young age. The fact we see this unfold from this characters perspective makes the audience adapt to the same mind set, from the start we notice something isn’t quite right with his behaviour. Additionally you could say that themes of irony are used in the film. This is because throughout the film the character Kevin is portrayed as not liking his mother but at the end of the film she is the only member of the family who wasn’t killed.

The film does not structure itself in chronological order the scenes are moved around to confuse the audience as they are left unsure at times if the advent on screen happened in the past or future.  This could connote to the characters Kevin’s mind set as his mental wellbeing seems to be all over the place.  The order of the film gives the audience a slight insight to the idea that something has happened, although we have no clue what it is. In the opening scene we see a long shot of a door and a curtain blowing in the wind, this is also repeated at the end of the film, till then the audience does not see the significance in the curtain. To add to this the cinematography in the film is used to tell us what happened in one shot. We see a yellow bike lock on the door which is immediately link to Kevin, we then realise he is responsible for this. The fact that the prop was yellow made It stand out even more as it was more noticeable to the audience due to the bright colour. This is then later confirmed when we see other characters come out of the school with arrows in them.

The sound in the end scene is non diegetic, we can hear screams but cannot see the action that goes with it , this makes the scene more powerful because it’s up to the audience to make the decide about how bad the incident was. This links to the school shootings that happen in America at the time the film was made. It signifies the idea that we will never be able to experience how the students felt and what they saw unless we are there at the time.

To conclude, the film there are themes of family which is expressed through the entire storyline, this theme then introduces conflict as we see that the mother and the son do not get along, this is shown with a long shot where Kevin sprays her room with red paint.